Hi folks - friendly neighborhood Live Music Archive admin here. Thought I'd drop some knowledge on the ins and outs of uploading to and managing your recordings on the LMA (http://www.archive.org/details/etree). This thread is informational only; if you have questions, ask them in the LMA/archive.org thread (link) or send me a private message.

UploadingAs of August 2009, the main way to upload concerts directly to the Live Music Archive is via the HTTP uploader. I've written a tutorial (link) which is hosted there.

The main error people seem to be making now is not clicking the "Is this a Live Music Archive concert?" link before they hit "Share my files!" for the first time. After you click that you should see three fields - band abbreviation, concert date, and rest of identifier.

You can also still use FTP - just click the "Upload" button and then click the "FTP" link on the next page, NOT the "Share" button. However, all FTP traffic is now funneled through one upload server, so at times of heavy traffic, you may not get maximum bandwidth available. Also, FTP is only available for one time per show - once you check a show in, if you need to edit it later (even to add more files), it must be done by clicking "Edit item" and doing so through the HTTP editor.

Getting your files to deriveIf your upload is error-free, it should appear in the band's collection (and the search engine) within 24 hours, and the item's details page should generate mp3, ogg, zip and m3u files as well as an embedded Flash player. If you do NOT get all of these things, it could be for one of four reasons.

The band you have uploaded does not allow mp3's to be made. This is rare but there are a few (which you can review here (link)).

You accidentally hit "Share my files!" before all of your files were uploaded.

There is a problem with the server you uploaded the files to.

Your upload contains incomplete or corrupted files, is missing a .txt file, or has other checksum-related errors.

For #1, there's nothing you can do to change this. Artist wishes always override tapers'/uploaders' wishes.For #2, you can queue up another derive task by clicking "Edit item" on the bottom-left box on the item's page, then clicking "change the information" in the left-hand box on the next page. At the top of the next page, click "Item manager", and you'll then see a "derive" button on the right-hand side. Hit that and the derive should take an hour or so.For #3, take a look at the item's history by using the URL http://www.archive.org/catalog.php?history=1&identifier=YOURIDENTIFIERHERE. If the server number in the "server" column is highlighted in yellow, all you can do is wait for the engineers to fix the hard drive. Then tasks will run as normal.For #4, you *should* have gotten an email from iasupport@archive.org detailing what the error was. If not, it likely got caught in a spam filter. Again, the item history will be a big help to you - use the link above and look for any rows of the history that are entirely in red. Click the "task_id" of the red row and read down to see what the error is.

File-based errorsSeveral different things can cause a red-row task to occur:

Incomplete files. This will yield an error that looks like: ERROR while decoding data state = FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_END_OF_STREAM

Corrupt files. This will yield an error that looks like: ERROR while decoding data state: FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_READ_FRAME/MISSINGTRACKNAMEHERE

Missing .txt file. Until recently, an info file in .txt format (not rtf, doc, pdf, etc.) was a required part of the upload process. The system is now smart enough to create one if you paste a setlist into the "Description" field, but it is very bare-bones and generic. Please provide one if you have one.

File missing from checksum list. This will yield an error that looks like: md5check-archive: checksum.md5: can't open /tmp/derive/YOURIDENTIFIERHERE

File does not match checksum. This will yield an error that looks like: checking YOURFILENAMEHERE: ERROR

This last case is a very common one with the new system; previously you were unable to upload file names with spaces or apostrophes in them, but with the new HTTP uploader, the system simply removes them during the upload. This, of course, causes the files not to match the md5 you created, and throws an error.

To fix any of the above errors, go to your item's page, click "Edit item" at bottom-left and then click "Change the files" on the right. This will take you to the HTTP editor; click the "Share" button at top-right to upload the files that need to be replaced. Then email etree@archive.org (or PM me here) to have the derive restarted. This is not something you can do yourself.

Other errorsThere are other types of errors that don't result from file failures. Admins can generally fix these - there's no need to re-upload if any of these happen:

Typo in your identifier - maybe you put the wrong date or wrote .flac15 instead of .flac16. Just tell us what you want it to be and we can fix it.

Accidental upload to Open Source Audio instead of Live Music Archive. This usually happens by not clicking the "Is this a Live Music Archive concert?" link before you hit "Share my files!" for the first time.

Lack of titles in the streaming player. This is caused by not filling out the titles in the metadata editor. Click "Edit item", choose "Change the information", fill out the titles, and then rederive by clicking "Edit item", "Change the information", "Item manager" and "derive".

Titles out of order in the streaming player. Files sort in the system as they would on a UNIX system, so make sure your files appear in the correct order on the page by using proper etree naming standards. The metadata editor also skips over tracks labeled "?" or tracks starting with numbers (the limits of the regex used to parse the txt file) so make sure they're correct before deriving. The system actually grabs the FIRST line that starts with a number, so if your date line is numerical, if your source line starts with a number, etc., it'll mess up the auto-parsing. If you need to fix titles, follow the steps from the previous bullet point above to edit and then re-derive.

"The item you have requested has a problem with one or more of the metadata files that describe it, which prevents us from displaying this page." - this is usually a temporary error. A refresh takes care of it most times.

Miscellaneous

Someone else uploaded one of my shows and I'd like to edit it. Send a link to the show and the email address you registered at archive.org with and I can switch it over to your account.

I've changed my email address and can't edit my old shows anymore. Send your old and new email addresses and I can switch them over en masse.